Jules Verne - All Around the Moon

J >> Jules Verne >> All Around the Moon

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24

ALL

AROUND THE MOON

FROM THE FRENCH OF

JULES VERNE

AUTHOR OF "FROM THE EARTH TO THE MOON", "TO THE SUN!" AND "OFF ON A
COMET!"

BY

EDWARD ROTH

ILLUSTRATED

PHILADELPHIA
DAVID MCKAY, PUBLISHER
23 SOUTH NINTH STREET

CONTENTS.

PRELIMINARY

I. FROM 10 P.M. TO 10. 46' 40''

II. THE FIRST HALF HOUR

III. THEY MAKE THEMSELVES AT HOME AND FEEL QUITE COMFORTABLE

IV. FOR THE CORNELL GIRLS

V. THE COLDS OF SPACE

VI. INSTRUCTIVE CONVERSATION

VII. A HIGH OLD TIME

VIII. THE NEUTRAL POINT

IX. A LITTLE OFF THE TRACK

X. THE OBSERVERS OF THE MOON

XI. FACT AND FANCY

XII. A BIRD'S EYE VIEW OF THE LUNAR MOUNTAINS

XIII. LUNAR LANDSCAPES

XIV. A NIGHT OF FIFTEEN DAYS

XV. GLIMPSES AT THE INVISIBLE

XVI. THE SOUTHERN HEMISPHERE

XVII. TYCHO

XVIII. PUZZLING QUESTIONS

XIX. IN EVERY FIGHT, THE IMPOSSIBLE WINS

XX. OFF THE PACIFIC COAST

XXI. NEWS FOR MARSTON!

XXII. ON THE WINGS OF THE WIND

XXIII. THE CLUB MEN GO A FISHING

XXIV. FAREWELL TO THE BALTIMORE GUN CLUB

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

1. HIS FIRST CARE WAS TO TURN ON THE GAS

2. DIANA AND SATELLITE

3. HE HELPED ARDAN TO LIFT BARBICAN

4. MORE HUNGRY THAN EITHER

5. THEY DRANK TO THE SPEEDY UNION OF THE EARTH AND HER SATELLITE

6. DON'T I THOUGH? MY HEAD IS SPLITTING WITH IT!

7. POOR SATELLITE WAS DROPPED OUT

8. THE BODY OF THE DOG THROWN OUT YESTERDAY

9. A DEMONIACAL HULLABALOO

10. THE OXYGEN! HE CRIED

11. A GROUP _a la Jardin Mabille_

12. AN IMMENSE BATTLE-FIELD PILED WITH BLEACHING BONES

13. NEVERTHELESS THE SOLUTION ESCAPED HIM

14. IT'S COLD ENOUGH TO FREEZE A WHITE BEAR

15. THEY COULD UTTER NO WORD, THEY COULD BREATHE NO PRAYER

16. THEY SEEMED HALF ASLEEP IN HIS VITALIZING BEAMS

17. THESE ARCHES EVIDENTLY ONCE BORE THE PIPES OF AN AQUEDUCT

18. ARDAN GAZED AT THE PAIR FOR A FEW MINUTES

19. OLD MAC DISCOVERED TAKING OBSERVATIONS

20. FOR A SECOND ONLY DID THEY CATCH ITS FLASH

21. HOW IS THAT FOR HIGH?

22. EVERYWHERE THEIR DEPARTURE WAS ACCOMPANIED WITH THE MOST TOUCHING
SYMPATHY

PRELIMINARY CHAPTER,

RESUMING THE FIRST PART OF THE WORK AND SERVING AS AN INTRODUCTION TO
THE SECOND.

A few years ago the world was suddenly astounded by hearing of an
experiment of a most novel and daring nature, altogether unprecedented
in the annals of science. The BALTIMORE GUN CLUB, a society of
artillerymen started in America during the great Civil War, had
conceived the idea of nothing less than establishing direct
communication with the Moon by means of a projectile! President
Barbican, the originator of the enterprise, was strongly encouraged in
its feasibility by the astronomers of Cambridge Observatory, and took
upon himself to provide all the means necessary to secure its success.
Having realized by means of a public subscription the sum of nearly five
and a half millions of dollars, he immediately set himself to work at
the necessary gigantic labors.

In accordance with the Cambridge men's note, the cannon intended to
discharge the projectile was to be planted in some country not further
than 28 deg. north or south from the equator, so that it might be aimed
vertically at the Moon in the zenith. The bullet was to be animated with
an initial velocity of 12,000 yards to the second. It was to be fired
off on the night of December 1st, at thirteen minutes and twenty seconds
before eleven o'clock, precisely. Four days afterwards it was to hit the
Moon, at the very moment that she reached her _perigee_, that is to say,
her nearest point to the Earth, about 228,000 miles distant.

The leading members of the Club, namely President Barbican, Secretary
Marston, Major Elphinstone and General Morgan, forming the executive
committee, held several meetings to discuss the shape and material of
the bullet, the nature and position of the cannon, and the quantity and
quality of the powder. The decision soon arrived at was as follows:
1st--The bullet was to be a hollow aluminium shell, its diameter nine
feet, its walls a foot in thickness, and its weight 19,250 pounds;
2nd--The cannon was to be a columbiad 900 feet in length, a well of that
depth forming the vertical mould in which it was to be cast, and
3rd--The powder was to be 400 thousand pounds of gun cotton, which, by
developing more than 200 thousand millions of cubic feet of gas under
the projectile, would easily send it as far as our satellite.

These questions settled, Barbican, aided by Murphy, the Chief Engineer
of the Cold Spring Iron Works, selected a spot in Florida, near the 27th
degree north latitude, called Stony Hill, where after the performance of
many wonderful feats in mining engineering, the Columbiad was
successfully cast.

Things had reached this state when an incident occurred which excited
the general interest a hundred fold.

A Frenchman from Paris, Michel Ardan by name, eccentric, but keen and
shrewd as well as daring, demanded, by the Atlantic telegraph,
permission to be enclosed in the bullet so that he might be carried to
the Moon, where he was curious to make certain investigations. Received
in America with great enthusiasm, Ardan held a great meeting,
triumphantly carried his point, reconciled Barbican to his mortal foe, a
certain Captain M'Nicholl, and even, by way of clinching the
reconciliation, induced both the newly made friends to join him in his
contemplated trip to the Moon.

The bullet, so modified as to become a hollow conical cylinder with
plenty of room inside, was further provided with powerful water-springs
and readily-ruptured partitions below the floor, intended to deaden the
dreadful concussion sure to accompany the start. It was supplied with
provisions for a year, water for a few months, and gas for nearly two
weeks. A self-acting apparatus, of ingenious construction, kept the
confined atmosphere sweet and healthy by manufacturing pure oxygen and
absorbing carbonic acid. Finally, the Gun Club had constructed, at
enormous expense, a gigantic telescope, which, from the summit of Long's
Peak, could pursue the Projectile as it winged its way through the
regions of space. Everything at last was ready.

On December 1st, at the appointed moment, in the midst of an immense
concourse of spectators, the departure took place, and, for the first
time in the world's history, three human beings quitted our terrestrial
globe with some possibility in their favor of finally reaching a point
of destination in the inter-planetary spaces. They expected to
accomplish their journey in 97 hours, 13 minutes and 20 seconds,
consequently reaching the Lunar surface precisely at midnight on
December 5-6, the exact moment when the Moon would be full.

Unfortunately, the instantaneous explosion of such a vast quantity of
gun-cotton, by giving rise to a violent commotion in the atmosphere,
generated so much vapor and mist as to render the Moon invisible for
several nights to the innumerable watchers in the Western Hemisphere,
who vainly tried to catch sight of her.

In the meantime, J.T. Marston, the Secretary of the Gun Club, and a most
devoted friend of Barbican's, had started for Long's Peak, Colorado, on
the summit of which the immense telescope, already alluded to, had been
erected; it was of the reflecting kind, and possessed power sufficient
to bring the Moon within a distance of five miles. While Marston was
prosecuting his long journey with all possible speed, Professor
Belfast, who had charge of the telescope, was endeavoring to catch a
glimpse of the Projectile, but for a long time with no success. The
hazy, cloudy weather lasted for more than a week, to the great disgust
of the public at large. People even began to fear that further
observation would have to be deferred to the 3d of the following month,
January, as during the latter half of December the waning Moon could not
possibly give light enough to render the Projectile visible.

At last, however, to the unbounded satisfaction of all, a violent
tempest suddenly cleared the sky, and on the 13th of December, shortly
after midnight, the Moon, verging towards her last quarter, revealed
herself sharp and bright on the dark background of the starry firmament.

That same morning, a few hours before Marston's arrival at the summit of
Long's Peak, a very remarkable telegram had been dispatched by Professor
Belfast to the Smithsonian Institute, Washington. It announced:

That on December 13th, at 2 o'clock in the morning, the Projectile shot
from Stony Hill had been perceived by Professor Belfast and his
assistants; that, deflected a little from its course by some unknown
cause, it had not reached its mark, though it had approached near enough
to be affected by the Lunar attraction; and that, its rectilineal motion
having become circular, it should henceforth continue to describe a
regular orbit around the Moon, of which in fact it had become the
Satellite. The dispatch went on further to state:

That the _elements_ of the new heavenly body had not yet been
calculated, as at least three different observations, taken at different
times, were necessary to determine them. The distance of the Projectile
from the Lunar surface, however, might be set down roughly at roughly
2833 miles.

The dispatch concluded with the following hypotheses, positively
pronounced to be the only two possible: Either, 1, The Lunar attraction
would finally prevail, in which case the travellers would reach their
destination; or 2, The Projectile, kept whirling forever in an immutable
orbit, would go on revolving around the Moon till time should be no
more.

In either alternative, what should be the lot of the daring adventurers?
They had, it is true, abundant provisions to last them for some time,
but even supposing that they did reach the Moon and thereby completely
establish the practicability of their daring enterprise, how were they
ever to get back? _Could_ they ever get back? or ever even be heard
from? Questions of this nature, freely discussed by the ablest pens of
the day, kept the public mind in a very restless and excited condition.

We must be pardoned here for making a little remark which, however,
astronomers and other scientific men of sanguine temperament would do
well to ponder over. An observer cannot be too cautious in announcing to
the public his discovery when it is of a nature purely speculative.
Nobody is obliged to discover a planet, or a comet, or even a satellite,
but, before announcing to the world that you have made such a discovery,
first make sure that such is really the fact. Because, you know, should
it afterwards come out that you have done nothing of the kind, you make
yourself a butt for the stupid jokes of the lowest newspaper scribblers.
Belfast had never thought of this. Impelled by his irrepressible rage
for discovery--the _furor inveniendi_ ascribed to all astronomers by
Aurelius Priscus--he had therefore been guilty of an indiscretion highly
un-scientific when his famous telegram, launched to the world at large
from the summit of the Rocky Mountains, pronounced so dogmatically on
the only possible issues of the great enterprise.

The truth was that his telegram contained _two_ very important errors:
1. Error of _observation_, as facts afterwards proved; the Projectile
_was_ not seen on the 13th and _could_ not have been on that day, so
that the little black spot which Belfast professed to have seen was most
certainly not the Projectile; 2. Error of _theory_ regarding the final
fate of the Projectile, since to make it become the Moon's satellite was
flying in the face of one of the great fundamental laws of Theoretical
Mechanics.

Only one, therefore, the first, of the hypotheses so positively
announced, was capable of realization. The travellers--that is to say if
they still lived--might so combine and unite their own efforts with
those of the Lunar attraction as actually to succeed at last in reaching
the Moon's surface.

Now the travellers, those daring but cool-headed men who knew very well
what they were about, _did_ still live, they _had_ survived the
frightful concussion of the start, and it is to the faithful record of
their wonderful trip in the bullet-car, with all its singular and
dramatic details, that the present volume is devoted. The story may
destroy many illusions, prejudices and conjectures; but it will at least
give correct ideas of the strange incidents to which such an enterprise
is exposed, and it will certainly bring out in strong colors the effects
of Barbican's scientific conceptions, M'Nicholl's mechanical resources,
and Ardan's daring, eccentric, but brilliant and effective combinations.

Besides, it will show that J.T. Marston, their faithful friend and a man
every way worthy of the friendship of such men, was only losing his time
while mirroring the Moon in the speculum of the gigantic telescope on
that lofty peak of the mountains.

CHAPTER I.

FROM 10 P.M. TO 10 46' 40''.

The moment that the great clock belonging to the works at Stony Hill had
struck ten, Barbican, Ardan and M'Nicholl began to take their last
farewells of the numerous friends surrounding them. The two dogs
intended to accompany them had been already deposited in the Projectile.
The three travellers approached the mouth of the enormous cannon, seated
themselves in the flying car, and once more took leave for the last time
of the vast throng standing in silence around them. The windlass
creaked, the car started, and the three daring men disappeared in the
yawning gulf.

The trap-hole giving them ready access to the interior of the
Projectile, the car soon came back empty; the great windlass was
presently rolled away; the tackle and scaffolding were removed, and in a
short space of time the great mouth of the Columbiad was completely rid
of all obstructions.

M'Nicholl took upon himself to fasten the door of the trap on the inside
by means of a powerful combination of screws and bolts of his own
invention. He also covered up very carefully the glass lights with
strong iron plates of extreme solidity and tightly fitting joints.

Ardan's first care was to turn on the gas, which he found burning rather
low; but he lit no more than one burner, being desirous to economize as
much as possible their store of light and heat, which, as he well knew,
could not at the very utmost last them longer than a few weeks.

Under the cheerful blaze, the interior of the Projectile looked like a
comfortable little chamber, with its circular sofa, nicely padded walls,
and dome shaped ceiling.

All the articles that it contained, arms, instruments, utensils, etc.,
were solidly fastened to the projections of the wadding, so as to
sustain the least injury possible from the first terrible shock. In
fact, all precautions possible, humanly speaking, had been taken to
counteract this, the first, and possibly one of the very greatest
dangers to which the courageous adventurers would be exposed.

Ardan expressed himself to be quite pleased with the appearance of
things in general.

"It's a prison, to be sure," said he "but not one of your ordinary
prisons that always keep in the one spot. For my part, as long as I can
have the privilege of looking out of the window, I am willing to lease
it for a hundred years. Ah! Barbican, that brings out one of your stony
smiles. You think our lease may last longer than that! Our tenement may
become our coffin, eh? Be it so. I prefer it anyway to Mahomet's; it may
indeed float in the air, but it won't be motionless as a milestone!"

[Illustration: TURN ON THE GAS.]

Barbican, having made sure by personal inspection that everything was in
perfect order, consulted his chronometer, which he had carefully set a
short time before with Chief Engineer Murphy's, who had been charged to
fire off the Projectile.

"Friends," he said, "it is now twenty minutes past ten. At 10 46' 40'',
precisely, Murphy will send the electric current into the gun-cotton. We
have, therefore, twenty-six minutes more to remain on earth."

"Twenty-six minutes and twenty seconds," observed Captain M'Nicholl, who
always aimed at mathematical precision.

"Twenty-six minutes!" cried Ardan, gaily. "An age, a cycle, according to
the use you make of them. In twenty-six minutes how much can be done!
The weightiest questions of warfare, politics, morality, can be
discussed, even decided, in twenty-six minutes. Twenty-six minutes well
spent are infinitely more valuable than twenty-six lifetimes wasted! A
few seconds even, employed by a Pascal, or a Newton, or a Barbican, or
any other profoundly intellectual being

Whose thoughts wander through eternity--"

"As mad as Marston! Every bit!" muttered the Captain, half audibly.

"What do you conclude from this rigmarole of yours?" interrupted
Barbican.

"I conclude that we have twenty-six good minutes still left--"

"Only twenty-four minutes, ten seconds," interrupted the Captain, watch
in hand.

"Well, twenty-four minutes, Captain," Ardan went on; "now even in
twenty-four minutes, I maintain--"

"Ardan," interrupted Barbican, "after a very little while we shall have
plenty of time for philosophical disputations. Just now let us think of
something far more pressing."

"More pressing! what do you mean? are we not fully prepared?"

"Yes, fully prepared, as far at least as we have been able to foresee.
But we may still, I think, possibly increase the number of precautions
to be taken against the terrible shock that we are so soon to
experience."

"What? Have you any doubts whatever of the effectiveness of your
brilliant and extremely original idea? Don't you think that the layers
of water, regularly disposed in easily-ruptured partitions beneath this
floor, will afford us sufficient protection by their elasticity?"

"I hope so, indeed, my dear friend, but I am by no means confident."

"He hopes! He is by no means confident! Listen to that, Mac! Pretty time
to tell us so! Let me out of here!"

"Too late!" observed the Captain quietly. "The trap-hole alone would
take ten or fifteen minutes to open."

"Oh then I suppose I must make the best of it," said Ardan, laughing.
"All aboard, gentlemen! The train starts in twenty minutes!"

"In nineteen minutes and eighteen seconds," said the Captain, who never
took his eye off the chronometer.

The three travellers looked at each other for a little while, during
which even Ardan appeared to become serious. After another careful
glance at the several objects lying around them, Barbican said, quietly:

"Everything is in its place, except ourselves. What we have now to do is
to decide on the position we must take in order to neutralize the shock
as much as possible. We must be particularly careful to guard against a
rush of blood to the head."

"Correct!" said the Captain.

"Suppose we stood on our heads, like the circus tumblers!" cried Ardan,
ready to suit the action to the word.

"Better than that," said Barbican; "we can lie on our side. Keep clearly
in mind, dear friends, that at the instant of departure it makes very
little difference to us whether we are inside the bullet or in front of
it. There is, no doubt, _some_ difference," he added, seeing the great
eyes made by his friends, "but it is exceedingly little."

"Thank heaven for the _some_!" interrupted Ardan, fervently.

"Don't you approve of my suggestion, Captain?" asked Barbican.

"Certainly," was the hasty reply. "That is to say, absolutely.
Seventeen minutes twenty-seven seconds!"

"Mac isn't a human being at all!" cried Ardan, admiringly. "He is a
repeating chronometer, horizontal escapement, London-made lever, capped,
jewelled,--"

His companions let him run on while they busied themselves in making
their last arrangements, with the greatest coolness and most systematic
method. In fact, I don't think of anything just now to compare them to
except a couple of old travellers who, having to pass the night in the
train, are trying to make themselves as comfortable as possible for
their long journey. In your profound astonishment, you may naturally ask
me of what strange material can the hearts of these Americans be made,
who can view without the slightest semblance of a flutter the approach
of the most appalling dangers? In your curiosity I fully participate,
but, I'm sorry to say, I can't gratify it. It is one of those things
that I could never find out.

Three mattresses, thick and well wadded, spread on the disc forming the
false bottom of the Projectile, were arranged in lines whose parallelism
was simply perfect. But Ardan would never think of occupying his until
the very last moment. Walking up and down, with the restless nervousness
of a wild beast in a cage, he kept up a continuous fire of talk; at one
moment with his friends, at another with the dogs, addressing the latter
by the euphonious and suggestive names of Diana and Satellite.

[Illustration: DIANA AND SATELLITE.]

"Ho, pets!" he would exclaim as he patted them gently, "you must not
forget the noble part you are to play up there. You must be models of
canine deportment. The eyes of the whole Selenitic world will be upon
you. You are the standard bearers of your race. From you they will
receive their first impression regarding its merits. Let it be a
favorable one. Compel those Selenites to acknowledge, in spite of
themselves, that the terrestrial race of canines is far superior to that
of the very best Moon dog among them!"

"Dogs in the Moon!" sneered M'Nicholl, "I like that!"

"Plenty of dogs!" cried Ardan, "and horses too, and cows, and sheep, and
no end of chickens!"

"A hundred dollars to one there isn't a single chicken within the whole
Lunar realm, not excluding even the invisible side!" cried the Captain,
in an authoritative tone, but never taking his eye off the chronometer.

"I take that bet, my son," coolly replied Ardan, shaking the Captain's
hand by way of ratifying the wager; "and this reminds me, by the way,
Mac, that you have lost three bets already, to the pretty little tune of
six thousand dollars."

"And paid them, too!" cried the captain, monotonously; "ten, thirty-six,
six!"

"Yes, and in a quarter of an hour you will have to pay nine thousand
dollars more; four thousand because the Columbiad will not burst, and
five thousand because the Projectile will rise more than six miles from
the Earth."

"I have the money ready," answered the Captain, touching his breeches
pocket. "When I lose I pay. Not sooner. Ten, thirty-eight, ten!"

"Captain, you're a man of method, if there ever was one. I think,
however, that you made a mistake in your wagers."

"How so?" asked the Captain listlessly, his eye still on the dial.

"Because, by Jove, if you win there will be no more of you left to take
the money than there will be of Barbican to pay it!"

"Friend Ardan," quietly observed Barbican, "my stakes are deposited in
the _Wall Street Bank_, of New York, with orders to pay them over to the
Captain's heirs, in case the Captain himself should fail to put in an
appearance at the proper time."

"Oh! you rhinoceroses, you pachyderms, you granite men!" cried Ardan,
gasping with surprise; "you machines with iron heads, and iron hearts! I
may admire you, but I'm blessed if I understand you!"

"Ten, forty-two, ten!" repeated M'Nicholl, as mechanically as if it was
the chronometer itself that spoke.

"Four minutes and a half more," said Barbican.

"Oh! four and a half little minutes!" went on Ardan. "Only think of it!
We are shut up in a bullet that lies in the chamber of a cannon nine
hundred feet long. Underneath this bullet is piled a charge of 400
thousand pounds of gun-cotton, equivalent to 1600 thousand pounds of
ordinary gunpowder! And at this very instant our friend Murphy,
chronometer in hand, eye on dial, finger on discharger, is counting the
last seconds and getting ready to launch us into the limitless regions
of planetary--"

"Ardan, dear friend," interrupted Barbican, in a grave tone, "a serious
moment is now at hand. Let us meet it with some interior recollection.
Give me your hands, my dear friends."

"Certainly," said Ardan, with tears in his voice, and already at the
other extreme of his apparent levity.

The three brave men united in one last, silent, but warm and impulsively
affectionate pressure.

"And now, great God, our Creator, protect us! In Thee we trust!" prayed
Barbican, the others joining him with folded hands and bowed heads.

"Ten, forty-six!" whispered the Captain, as he and Ardan quietly took
their places on the mattresses.

Only forty seconds more!

Barbican rapidly extinguishes the gas and lies down beside his
companions.

The deathlike silence now reigning in the Projectile is interrupted only
by the sharp ticking of the chronometer as it beats the seconds.

Suddenly, a dreadful shock is felt, and the Projectile, shot up by the
instantaneous development of 200,000 millions of cubic feet of gas, is
flying into space with inconceivable rapidity!

CHAPTER II.

THE FIRST HALF HOUR.

What had taken place within the Projectile? What effect had been
produced by the frightful concussion? Had Barbican's ingenuity been
attended with a fortunate result? Had the shock been sufficiently
deadened by the springs, the buffers, the water layers, and the
partitions so readily ruptured? Had their combined effect succeeded in
counteracting the tremendous violence of a velocity of 12,000 yards a
second, actually sufficient to carry them from London to New York in six
minutes? These, and a hundred other questions of a similar nature were
asked that night by the millions who had been watching the explosion
from the base of Stony Hill. Themselves they forgot altogether for the
moment; they forgot everything in their absorbing anxiety regarding the
fate of the daring travellers. Had one among them, our friend Marston,
for instance, been favored with a glimpse at the interior of the
projectile, what would he have seen?

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24